Gluten-Free Goodness, Right Here in Minooka

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a weekly series called "Sunday Dinners with Dawn," in which Local Editor Dawn Aulet will dine with someone from the community. You get to pick the restaurant, and she picks up the tab. Dawn went to dinner solo Sunday night because no one responded to her requests for a dining companion. E-mail Dawn to sign up.

While I ate a pizza and salad Sunday night, co-owner Ernie Bueno told me all about the business he and wife Carri Bueno own.

"All you have to do is take care of every customer and have good pizza," Bueno said. "That's what we do."

Apparently, that also means sitting down with the local editor who is writing about the pizza she looked forward to eating all evening.

It was fairly obvious by about 6:30 p.m. Sunday night that I was on my own for dinner. Sure, I could have asked a friend to join me or brought my family, but that wasn't part of the deal. The deal is I wait for a resident or local official to call or e-mail me. They pick the place and I pick up the tab. But since no one wanted a free meal this Sunday, I was dining alone.

Knowing this, I headed to one of the restaurants I frequent most in the area — Fat Boyz. Ordinarily, Fat Boyz for dinner means I pick up the phone and order delivery. But this time, I wanted to see what the restaurant looked like inside and to take photos to share with all of you. So I braved the rain and drove to Minooka.

Fat Boyz has been a staple in the community for about 10 years, and Carri and Ernie Bueno have owned the restaurant for about a year.

Three little words

The reason I like Fat Boyz so much can be summed up with a simple phrase — gluten-free pizza. And I'm not the only one.

"It's pretty popular for us," Ernie Bueno said. "People that had it continue to eat it because it is gluten-free."

The owners and their employees go to great lengths to make sure that what starts as a gluten-free pizza remains that way. The restaurant even closes the side door when making a gluten-free pizza so the vented air doesn't contaminate it.

"All it takes is for flour to blow through and you might as well have had a traditional pizza," Ernie Bueno said.

People adopt gluten-free diets for a number of reasons, including having celiac disease or simply being gluten-intolerant. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder in which a person cannot digest wheat, gluten, barley and/or rye. If someone with celiac disease eats those items, they can damage the villi in the intestines and cause terrible side effects. If untreated, people can develop other health complications. The treatment is to simply not eat gluten, which often is easier said than done. Gluten-intolerant people might have an allergy or simply be bothered when they eat wheat or products containing gluten.

I adopted a gluten-free diet about three years ago, after my doctor recommended I stop eating gluten and dairy and then add them back into my diet. I had been having stomach problems, and it turned out to be gluten that was causing me all the trouble. Like many others, I miss items like bread, cookies and pizza. So a restaurant that offers gluten-free pizza gets both my business and my gratitude.

So, was it good?

I ordered my pizza this time with mushrooms, spinach and garlic. And yes, it was very good. First, all the ingredients are fresh. As you can see from my photos, fresh mushrooms and spinach were piled on my pizza. Second, the crust is good — chewy and crispy and doesn't taste like cardboard, which isn't always the case with gluten-free food.

I also ordered a Meal Salad, which includes pepperoni, cheese, green pepper, ham, lettuce, black olives and onions. It's aptly named, as this salad is huge, dense and filling.

All in all, I had a very good and satisfying meal at Fat Boyz. I was lucky enough to watch them make my pizza, which was a cool experience. Ernie Bueno was very accommodating and you can tell he loves what he does.